Good news?

Reason it made the cut: One of the only public liberal arts schools in the nation, UMM ranks just behind cash-rich Amherst and Williams for bang for the buck among schools of its type.

Morris students, a third of whom are first-generation college-goers, shoulder the lowest debt burden in the University of Minnesota system, and among the lowest in the Midwest. The public school price tag, in tandem with a low student-to-faculty ratio of 15 to 1 and other private/liberal arts school attributes, makes Morris a unique value proposition. And if a liberal arts degree may not seem like the most efficient ticket to social mobility in a depressed economy, consider this: 94 percent of recent Morris grads either went on to pursue advanced degrees or found employment within a year of leaving school, which they attribute to the resources, reputation, and connections that the campus enjoys as part of the University of Minnesota system. In addition to being able to choose from thirty-five different liberal arts majors, Morris’s 1,900 students can select from eight preprofessional programs like engineering and nursing, as well as an online learning program—reminders of that public school status and network despite the school’s small size and capacity.

I’m tempted to say, though, that you shouldn’t come here. We’re really, really good, but we’re also full up with students. All the faculty in biology are stretched thinly to keep up with everything — I don’t know that we could handle any more workload.

So unless you’re absolutely brilliant, ambitious, and enthusiastic about getting an amazingly good broad education in the liberal arts, you shouldn’t apply here. Maybe you can go to the University of Minnesota Twin Cities instead? It’s a perfectly nice second choice.

If you can’t get in here, I’m sure you’ve got some acceptable safety schools, like Harvard or something.

Comments

International student tuition here is similar to in-state tuition at most state schools in the states and only 1-3k more than UMM, and within 2 years you can establish permanent residency…so that the next 2 years are barely more than 1/2 the price of UMM.

Also, for some reason when funding decisions are made that put extra burdens on students, you get entire cities banging pots & pans every evening for week after week until price hikes are stopped or halved. So there’s a bit of insurance that the cost of education won’t go up 30% between your first year and your 4th, as it has been known to do in the states. (Well, at least at one point in the University of California system it did, IIRC)

My first tuition fee when I started at the U of M Minneapolis in 1952 tuition was $55/quarter equivalent to $480 in today’s dollars. After a couple years in the army my tuition was about the same and the GI Bill provided $110/ month, equivalent to $950/month today for 4 academic years. Tuition was free in California.

The young today are being royally shafted. No worries the 1% are doing fine.